Sameer Rekhi
Some recent incidents and developments are a cause of serious concern as regards global peace & security. All of a sudden the world seems to have become a dangerous place to live in, if not immediately, then definitely in the not so distant future if the virulent forces of hatred, religious bigotry and beastly thought process are not controlled or reined in. There is hardly any country left in the world which is actually safe and secure. The “global jehad” is like an uncontrolled chain reaction which if not moderated or intercepted now may have catastrophic consequences for the human race and its continuity.
In your truly’s view, a few developments portend a frightful scenario not only because of their individual threat or damage but more so because of the common thread of religious intolerance and extremism driven agenda that binds them.
The Peshawar massacre of innocent school children was one of the most heinous and vulgar crimes the world has ever seen in the modern times. The killing of the 132 budding flowers took place just a couple of days after ‘Brave-heart’ Malala Yousufzai became the youngest recipient of a Nobel. The dastardly attack was claimed by Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) aka Pakistan Taliban, now headed by Mullah Fazullah, also known as ‘Mullah Radio’ who belongs to Swat region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from where Malala also comes. It is no irony that the same set of terrorists who targeted the ‘little girl’ in Swat for having the gall to ignore their dictates and to actively promote ‘girl education’, also planned and executed the unimaginably brutal killing of so many innocent children. Every street in Peshawar had a corpse or two; such was the magnitude of the tragedy. Whether the attackers were Uzbek, Chechen, Yemini or Pashtun is still to be established, but the imprints of global jehadi forces particularly Arab were quite noticeable in the abysmally bestial killings, notwithstanding Al Qaeda’s condemnation of the massacre. Taliban and other Deobandi outfits have remained adjuncts of Al-Qaeda in the Waziristan belt of FATA since 1995. The reasons and excuses, TTP spokesman offered to justify the targeting of the children of Army-men might just have been a charade to cover the footprints of the “global jehadis” determined to finish off infidels, western agents or anyone opposing or obstructing their designs.
The second tragedy unfolded in Paris, the cradle of liberty, equality and fraternity and perceived to be one of the safest spaces of the world. Twelve people including journalists and a policeman were gunned down at the office of Charlie-Hebdo- a leading French satirical weekly. While violence of any sort needs to be unequivocally condemned and uprooted, one is tempted to say that this showdown was waiting to happen given the deadly tug of war which was going on for a while in the theatre of competing religious intolerance. However, as Husain Haqqani, former Pakistan envoy to the US aptly puts it in his recent column “Guns Cannot Reclaim Lost Muslim Glory” when he says: “Like followers of any other religion, Muslims do not like insults to their faith or to their Prophet. But threats and actual attacks of the type witnessed in Paris last week have been limited to Islamists”, murder and violent outrage is no way to avenge insult. There are different ways to resort to other than killing humans while dealing with such denigrations. Whoever may lay claim to the Charlie-Hebdo terrorist attack, it is unambiguously clear that the “global jehad” whether under the banner of Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram, Al Shabab, ETIM, Al Nusra or Taliban has a clear goal: to force the world into subjugation through ‘Holy Terror’; Plurality of thought or democratic traditions are to be snubbed out of existence, while faith supremacy is to be enforced throughout the world.
When Hafiz Saeed, UN designated terrorist and the head of Jamat-ud-Dawah (JuD), a front organization of Lashker-e-Toiba (LeT) declares openly in Pakistan that India needs to be taught a lesson through jehad; ‘Ghazwa-e-Hind’ (conquest of India and adjoining lands) is inevitable, Kashmir will be freed, 1971 will be avenged and Ahmedabad Gujrat victims will get justice’, the message should be clearly discerned. That as loyal strategic assets enjoying Pakistan state’s patronage, LeT even while giving shape to the latter’s territorial ambitions, strategic goals and politics of revenge in India, views it essentially as fighting a holy battle in the overall war of “global jehad”. If Hafiz Saeed has invoked Ghazwa-e-Hind, it is because its religious appeal has a huge sway over radical Islamists world over. The term is often quoted by the radical preachers as being an obligation under jehad. The ISIS & Al Qaeda have already revealed their intentions on Ghazwa-e-Hind some time back.
Having said so much, it is all the more worrisome that the sane voices of the world are either hesitant or afraid or worse still, unwilling to speak in one frequency for taking a stand on the perverse and ‘anti-life’ actions that are being witnessed. Even as unequivocal opposition and condemnation of terrorist incidents some of which have been very heinous may have been observed in isolated cases but an overall change in perspective among the affected people as expected in the backdrop of recurring tragedies is nowhere to be seen. A recent procession in Peshawar, a city which witnessed the most horrific terrorist attack just a few days back, in support of the killer brothers of Charlie-Hebdo journalists, led by Maulana Pir Mohammad Chisti quite neatly describes this unfortunate but dangerous paradox as do some other contradictory reactions.
From among the same people who collectively & unequivocally condemned the Peshawar massacre, expressing serious concerns for the security of their children in the face of terrorism, some individuals steeped in radicalism and hatred, castigated and used very abusive words against some columnists and individuals on social networking sites, who had unwittingly committed the ‘crime’ of praising Malala Yousufzai after she was awarded the Nobel prize or condemning the Paris attack. If this is not double speak, then pray what is!!
Summing up the argument, the phenomenon of ‘global jehad’ is acquiring menacing proportions. Earlier, it was only Al-Qaeda which was actually championing it, and whose appeal was not so widespread as it is today with so many lethal terrorist outfits operating towards a common goal. In the process, there also seen is a macabre competition among them to be acknowledged as the most violent outfit of all.
The governments across all the continents must put their heads together to devise a common strategy and constitute a common forum to counter this threat to the entire humanity. It must be seen as a threat similar to nuclear holocaust or chemical/ biological attack on the entire world.
Individuals across the world, irrespective of their religion, nationality, race or ideology and cutting across all lines of differentiation must speak in one voice about the dangers that the horrific spectre of ‘global terrorism’ poses to their posterity-the next generations. Do not they owe to their children to provide them a safe and secure future? Is it too much to ask for? Religious extremism starts from each individual, from each family and grows to take the shape of a wildfire engulfing and destroying whatever comes in its way. Not even the hand that feeds it is spared, such is its nature. So every individual as much as his government, while rejecting ideas of faith supremacy, religious bigotry and intolerance as poison, needs to make extra-ordinary efforts to defeat the terminal designs of the evil forces who kill without compunction in the name of religion and who see death, mayhem and fear as the foundations of the citadel of their political power. Achille Mbembe, a philosopher & political scientist, calls it ‘Necropolitics’, propounding thereby that the ultimate expression of sovereignty resides in the power and capacity to dictate who may live and who must die which, when simplified would roughly mean the ‘use of death and threat to build up political power’. This must stop!! We owe it to our children.
(The author writes on security and intelligence analysis and views expressed are part of his individual opinion)
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